Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The - Stieg Larsson [92]
She left middle school and moved to another, without having a single friend to say goodbye to. An unloved girl with odd behaviour.
Then, as she was on the threshold of her teenage years, All The Evil happened, which she did not want to think about. The last outburst set the pattern and prompted a review of the casebook entries from elementary school. After that she was considered to be legally…well, crazy. A freak. Salander had never needed any documents to know that she was different. But it was not something that bothered her for as long as her guardian was Holger Palmgren; if the need arose, she could wrap him around her little finger.
With the appearance of Nils Bjurman, the declaration of incompetence threatened to become a troublesome burden in her life. No matter who she turned to, pitfalls would open up; and what would happen if she lost the battle? Would she be institutionalised? Locked up? There was really no option.
Later that night, when Cecilia Vanger and Blomkvist were lying peacefully with their legs intertwined and Cecilia’s breasts resting against his side, she looked up at him.
“Thank you. It’s been a long time. And you’re not bad.”
He smiled. That sort of flattery was always childishly satisfying.
“It was unexpected, but I had fun.”
“I’d be happy to do it again,” Cecilia said. “If you feel like it.”
He looked at her.
“You don’t mean that you’d like to have a lover, do you?”
“An occasional lover,” Cecilia said. “But I’d like you to go home before you fall asleep. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow morning and find you here before I manage to do my exercises and fix my face. And it would be good if you didn’t tell the whole village what we’ve been up to.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Blomkvist said.
“Most of all I don’t want Isabella to know. She’s such a bitch.”
“And your closest neighbour…I’ve met her.”
“Yes, but luckily she can’t see my front door from her house. Mikael, please be discreet.”
“I’ll be discreet.”
“Thank you. Do you drink?”
“Sometimes.”
“I’ve got a craving for something fruity with gin in it. Want some?”
“Sure.”
She wrapped a sheet around herself and went downstairs. Blomkvist was standing naked, looking at her bookshelves when she returned with a carafe of iced water and two glasses of gin and lime. They drank a toast.
“Why did you come over here?” she asked.
“No special reason. I just…”
“You were sitting at home, reading through Henrik’s investigation. And then you came over here. A person doesn’t need to be super intelligent to know what you’re brooding about.”
“Have you read the investigation?”
“Parts of it. I’ve lived my entire adult life with it. You can’t spend time with Henrik without being affected by the mystery of Harriet.”
“It’s actually a fascinating case. What I believe is known in the trade as a locked-room mystery, on an island. And nothing in the investigation seems to follow normal logic. Every question remains unanswered, every clue leads to a dead end.”
“It’s the kind of thing people can get obsessed about.”
“You were on the island that day.”
“Yes. I was here, and I witnessed the whole commotion. I was living in Stockholm at the time, studying. I wish I had stayed at home that weekend.”
“What was she really like? People seem to have completely different views of her.”
“Is this off the record or…?”
“It’s off the record.”
“I haven’t the least idea what was going on inside Harriet’s head. You’re thinking of her last year, of course. One day she was a religious crackpot. The next day she put on make-up like a whore and went to school wearing the tightest sweater she possessed. Obviously she was seriously unhappy. But, as I said, I wasn’t here and just picked up the gossip.”
“What triggered the problems?”
“Gottfried and Isabella, obviously. Their marriage